AV News 182 - November 2010
Editorial
Jill K Bunting CPAGB & John Smith APAGB CPAGB
We were pleased to be able to have a
chat with those of you who managed to
get along to the RPS International
Festival at Cirencester and we hope
that you enjoyed seeing the variety and
the quality of sequences that were
shown - we certainly did!
Unfortunately, for some, the weekend
ended on a rather sour note with the
surprise announcement, right at the end
of the event, when most people had left,
of the official suspension of the Audio
Visual Panel. This decision was made by the Council and Distinctions
Advisory Board at their meeting in July. It would appear that 'due, in part, to
the drastic fall-off of support of The Society's distinctions in AV' a working group
has been set up to look at 'the interface between the still and moving image,
between time and motion, and the dynamic between audio and visual imagery.'
'The anticipation is that a distinction panel encompassing Time Based Media
and AV will be formed.' See Page 48 for the full report.
A 'working group' is due to report back to the November meeting of the
Board and of course we hope to be able to report the official outcome of these
deliberations and their implications in the February edition of AV News.
This raises the question of who will have the necessary qualifications and
experience to assess people for distinctions across such a broad spectrum
and, as most videos are done as a team - cameraman, sound recordist,
director etc - do they all get the distinction??
With the above in mind it was interesting to read the first of two articles in
'The Journal' on 'HD Video Shooting with a DSLR'. After reading this, one
might ask why anyone would entertain using a DSLR as a HD Video camera!
Apparently you need to switch off the viewfinder and peer into the dim display
on the back of the camera, turn off the auto focus, make sure you use the right
frame rate and shutter speed, find the right profiling to give the correct white
balance, don't use the built in microphone as you will pick up the camera noise
and then ensure you try and hold the camera steady!
There is a somewhat valid feeling that still cameras will not take good video
and a video camera will not take good stills - of course most mobile phones
will do both ... and we beleive that you can even telephone people! In most
cases these additional features tend to be somewhat gimmicky so why not use
each piece of kit for what they were originally designed to do?
Finally a couple of apologies - due to all that has been going on we have not
had a chance to evaluate, as promised, DGFects but have a report from Brian
Harvey on Page 38, also we have sadly run out of space for a follow on article
by Maurice Dybeck on 'Expenses'.
These we will ensure appear in the February edition.
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